1. Even if no random event rises from a tar pit somewhere, investors say they are worried about three issues, which center on the wounded American consumer , China and the Federal Reserve.

2. Part 1: The Software Tar Pit explains the many reasons why the software field arrived at its current state.

3. An idea that tantalized global financial markets came out of the weekend and immediately sank into the tar pit of European decision making.

4. Like many conveniences in software development, a shared database is a tar pit waiting to fossilize a project. Developers overwrite each other's changes.

5. A new comet is speeding in from the dark. If you could smell it, you might recall a tar pit.

6. The biggest risk, says Zhang, is not that Beijing won't stay clean but that the rest of the country could remain stuck in an ecological tar pit.